A lot of us recognize that our county is moving in a downward spiral and feel a need to do something about it, but we just don't know what to do. This book gives those people something to do. One suggestion is to read like our founders did. The founders were not educated men (in a traditional sense) but they all could read and discuss "The Federalist Papers".
Another thing the authors suggested was being involved on a local level and knowing what is happening. Tocqueville says something similar in "Democracy in America". Bear with me; it is a long quote.
"There are some nations in Europe whose inhabitants think of themselves in a sense as colonist, indifferent to the fate of the place they live in. The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called "the government." They enjoy these goods as tenants, without sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved. They are so divorced from their own interests that even when their own security and that of their children is finally compromised, they do not seek to avert the danger themselves but cross their arms and wait for the nation as a whole to come to their aid. Yet as utterly as they sacrifice their own free will, they are no fonder of obedience than anyone else. They submit, it is true, to the whims of a clerk but no sooner is force removed than they are glad the defy the low as a defeated enemy. Thus one finds them ever wavering between servitude and license."
I am taking a constitution class in the fall and this book will be the closing book. I will read it again at that point. The hope is that after learning about what the founders wanted, we will want to read something that points us in the direction of change. It is something that everyone who wants to turn the spiral upwards should read.
